Pens Down Blog

Pens Down Blog2024-03-28T16:03:54-04:00

How Capture Management is Changing (And What That Means to You)

The world of government contracting is fast-paced and ever-evolving. To stay ahead of the curve, capture management – the strategic process of pursuing and winning government contracts – is adapting as well. In this blog, we'll delve into the transforming landscape of capture management and explore the implications for government contractors, capture managers, and proposal managers, as well as aspiring industry professionals. We'll also introduce our upcoming Capture Power Breakfast event, designed to equip you with the insights and latest strategies necessary to thrive in this dynamic environment. The Evolving Capture Landscape The world of government contracting is a battlefield. To secure lucrative contracts, organizations need a well-honed weapon; a robust capture management strategy. But just like any weapon, capture management needs regular maintenance and upgrades to remain effective. Procurement regulations change, customer priorities evolve, and new technologies emerge. What worked yesterday might not win the bid tomorrow. So, what’s

By , |March 28th, 2024|Categories: Blog, Featured Article, Home Page, News|Tags: |0 Comments

Five Tips for Collaborating Across Team Boundaries

By , |June 18th, 2022|Categories: Blog, Featured Article|

This article is reprinted here with permission in collaboration with our corporate partner Xait. Visit Xait's blog at https://www.xait.com/resources/blog Five Tips for Collaborating Across Team Boundaries Sales. Products. Services. Proposals. Team boundaries differentiate one workgroup from another, defining our common tasks and focusing on our shared objectives. When it comes to developing proposals, however, we are better when we work together. For proposal teams, who work across these boundaries every day, the key is collaboration.

Go/No-Go Decisions 101

By , |June 9th, 2022|Categories: Blog, Regular Article|

This article was originally published May 4, 2022 on Team Patri's blog - https://gopatri.com/pro-insights/2022/5/03/go-no-go-decisions-101. Go/No-Go Decisions 101 Professional poker players say the most crucial factor to their success is knowing when to play a hand and when to fold it. Poker players look at the available information, calculate the odds of success, and use this data to make quick decisions to play or pass. Similarly, the best proposal managers would tell you that the most

I Didn’t Go to APMP’s BidCon, but I wish I had

By |May 31st, 2022|Categories: Blog, Featured Article|

APMP had its flagship celebration this past week in Dallas, TX, and although I had an opportunity to be one of almost 1,000 attendees, at the last minute I decided not to take it. I was already traveling a lot in May and spending too much time away from my family,  so I ultimately decided to sit this one out. After missing events for 2-3 years due to COVID, I thought what’s another year? There’s

Learning from Losing

By |May 17th, 2022|Categories: Blog, Featured Article|

No one wants to lose, and no one wants to talk about losing. It is like talking about death. But failure can be an effective teacher. Most proposals are losing proposals—a statistical fact that is often ignored. But this does not mean that the participants are losers. Consider the career of Mike Krzyzewski (Coach K), a basketball legend who inspires his players to greatness. Under his direction, the Duke University basketball program has become one

Have You Done a Thorough Competitive Assessment to Win the Deal? 

By |April 28th, 2022|Categories: Blog|

Originally published in Solutioneering's Points of View. Know Thyself  Socrates, the classical Greek philosopher, said, “Know thyself.” Consider this related quote: “The successful company is the one that finds out what is the matter with its business before its competitors do.” This bit of wisdom comes from a principled and successful entrepreneur who co-founded a company operating in the federal government contracting (GovCon) space until it was acquired—at an impressive price of $236.95 per share!  Other companies look at, study, and

A Guide to Agile Proposal Development and Management

By |April 14th, 2022|Categories: Blog|

Agile software development is a set of approaches to software development where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between cross-functional teams and stakeholders. Agile encourages flexibility and rapid response to change while advocating adaptive planning, iterative development, early delivery, and continual improvement. Agile principles can be applied to other disciplines, including proposal management, to support flexible, adaptive processes that reduce waste, time, and cost. This article explores how Agile can be applied to proposal management

Proposal Coordinator Commandments

By |March 28th, 2022|Categories: Blog, Featured Article, Home Page|

Originally published on APMP's blog, Winning the Business https://winningthebusiness.com/proposal-coordinator-commandments/ Proposal coordinators are often overlooked, but the value they can bring to a team is instrumental in enabling the proposal manager to manage the bid process most efficiently from start to finish. Sure, a coordinator’s role is to assist the proposal manager, but what does that really mean? What differentiates a good coordinator from a great one? There are five “commandments” that every coordinator should follow

“Thinking Outside of the Box”- The Art & Science of GovCon Marketing

By |March 6th, 2022|Categories: Blog, Featured Article|

Originally published on LinkedIn, republished here with the author's permission: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/thinking-outside-box-art-science-govcon-marketing-mark-amtower/ What is “outside of the box thinking”? I have been in too many meetings where an executive will say something like “Our marketing is stale. We need some outside-the-box thinking.” Often this is the result of seeing or reading about success B2B or B2C marketing in a book or business magazine, or in one instance I can think of, a CEO sitting next to

APMP-NCA Members – We Need Your Input

By |February 23rd, 2022|Categories: Blog, Featured Article, Home Page, News|

Members, please help us shape the APMP National Capital Area (NCA) chapter! Have you seen our survey in your inbox? Who is the APMP-NCA Chapter? If you’re located in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States, you’re in luck. The Association of Proposal Management Professionals - National Capital Area (APMP-NCA) is the second largest of APMP’s 28 worldwide chapters. We’re here to support your success. We are located in the metropolitan Washington, DC area —

Resumes for the Win

By |February 11th, 2022|Categories: Blog, Featured Article|

Originally posted on Lohfeld Consulting's blog - Resumes for the Win. Resumes are the least appreciated proposal section. Proposal Managers often delegate resume writing to inexperienced writers. Writers create resumes without understanding how to interview the proposed key or non-key personnel for winning content and without understanding the proposed solution. Proposal reviewers frequently spend little time on resume review. Yet, resumes may provide discriminating Strengths that result in the win. Exceeding Requirements In a best

Finding and Cultivating New Talent in the Industry

By |February 3rd, 2022|Categories: Blog, Featured Article|

Originally posted on Winningthebusiness.com. In today’s market, we are all competing for proposal talent, and it’s not always easy to find the right fit. Our industry has historically been one where people have “fallen into” it, rather than choosing proposal management as an intentional career path. Proposal management isn’t a college major, so most students don’t even know our industry exists, which means that when they graduate and start sending out resumes, they don’t know

APMP-NCA

P.O. Box 711
Arlington, VA 22216-0711
www.apmpnca.org

A Publication of the Association of
Proposal Management Professionals
National Capital Area Chapter

Follow Us

Go to Top